Eadie's medal under doping cloud

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Spokes man: cyclist Sean Eadie leans against his Suzuki van near his Como home yesterday. Eadie has been accused of importing a banned substance from America five years ago. Photo: Peter Morris

The announcement of Australia's Athens-bound Olympic teams will be postponed until the backgrounds of all athletes are cleared with drug agencies and customs officials, after cyclist Sean Eadie was accused of importing a banned substance from America five years ago.

A "stunned" Eadie yesterday insisted he was unaware until the weekend that Australian Customs officials had seized 16 tablets of anterior pituitary peptides sent to his address from San Diego, California, in January 1999. The peptides, closely linked to human growth hormones, are not detectable under existing anti-doping testing.

Cycling Australia and Australian Olympic Committee chiefs only learned of the seizure last Friday after the names of South Australia's besieged sprint cycling team were forwarded to Customs for background checks.

Five cyclists, including Eadie, were accused by banned former teammate Mark French of injecting vitamins and supplements in his Australian Institute of Sport room in Adelaide.

The AOC responded swiftly yesterday, postponing further team announcements and serving a joint-infraction notice with CA to Eadie - a charge which, if uncontested in the next 14 days, will ensure the sprint star's omission from the Athens squad and the likelihood of a two-year ban.

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Furthermore, IOC officials in Lausanne, Switzerland, last night confirmed they had the power to retrospectively strip Australia's Sydney Olympics three-man sprint team of their bronze medals, should Eadie be convicted of the 1999 drug importation offence. Gary Neiwand and Darryn Hill combined with Eadie to finish third in 2000.

Eadie, meanwhile, was yesterday back at home in Sydney, saying he had pulled himself out of the pre-Games training camp for Australia's controversy-ridden cycling team in Rockhampton to spare the team from distractions and to work on clearing his name.

But the 34-year-old, insisting he had never taken or ordered any prohibited substance, said he was confident of being cleared of the charges through arbitration and of competing at the Olympics.

"Oh, I'll be in Athens, I'll be competing - I'm 100 per cent sure of that," a jovial Eadie told the Herald near his southern Sydney home. "This is just another hiccup, another hurdle . . . It's something else we'll work through, then we'll go back and get down to the business which I do, riding my bike.

"I know what I've done in the past, and I know I haven't done this. If I'm held accountable for a package addressed to me, sent by someone . . . I don't understand how that could work. But I know I didn't order them, so, while I'm concerned with the gravity of it, I'm more concerned with being able to resolve it quickly."

While Eadie vowed to clear his name, AOC president John Coates called on CA to withdraw the cyclist's Olympic nomination and name a replacement - likely to be Wollongong's Ben Kersten - for Australia's sprint team.

Referring to the latest controversy to engulf Australia's sprint cycling team as a "significant problem" and "very damaging", Coates said Eadie could submit a letter of appeal within two weeks to fight the charge, which carries a minimum two-year suspension.

Eadie, in response, said he would "more than likely" push to have the matter heard by the Court of Arbitration for Sport after consulting with lawyers over the next two days.

"In the absence of any such notice, he'll be deemed to have committed the offences," Coates said. "If he doesn't successfully defend this, then certainly the IOC would take back the medal that he won in 2000, I would think, and similarly any subsequent achievements or medals that he's had would be at risk.

"Given that there is a breach out there, I think they'd probably have to withdraw that nomination and his recourse is to appeal against his non-nomination to us, if he wants to do that, concurrently with running his case."

When asked the reason for the five-year lag between the customs seizure and yesterday's infraction notice, Coates said Customs officials weren't aware Eadie was an Olympian until asked to check the backgrounds of the South Australian-based cyclists at the centre of the Anderson inquiry into French's claims. A Customs spokesman confirmed yesterday an investigation into Eadie was ongoing, but doubted criminal charges would be laid. At the time of the seizure, the spokesman added, no framework existed for Customs to advise the AOC of trafficking offences involving athletes. That framework was set in place later in 1999.

Coates later suggested that in the event Eadie was found guilty, the minimum two-year suspension would be effective immediately, though he could be stripped of all medals won since 1999. That would include the bronze medal won with Neiwand and Hill in 2000, both of whom could also lose their medals.

"At the end of the day, we have the authority to take out any medal," said an IOC spokesperson. "It will be a decision made by the executive board of the IOC and decided on a case-by-case basis for an offence committed prior to the games."

And in a separate controversy, sources within CA yesterday claimed South Australian police had issued subpoenas to three South Australian Institute of Sport cyclists, seeking phone records linking them to an Adelaide veterinarian. The subpoenas come after French told the Anderson inquiry horse growth hormones were being used by cyclists to boost performances.

"The matter is still under investigation and is ongoing," said senior constable Brendan Evans of the South Australian police.